io8 



A' A rURE 



[May 29, 1890 



daughters of the late Rev. M. J. Berkeley, F.R.S. A Civil 

 List pension has also been granted to Mrs. Wood, widow of the 

 Rev. J. G. Wood, the well-known popular writer on natural 

 history. 



Dr. James Clark, M.A. (Edin.), Ph.D. (Tubingen), Royal 

 Exhibitioner and Associate in Botany, Prizeman in Geology 

 (Edinburgh University), has been appointed Professor of Natural 

 History in the College of Agriculture, Downton, Salisbury. Dr. 

 Clark has recently been employed on important work in the 

 Natural History Department of the British Museum, and is the 

 author of several papers on geology and biology. 



A Chair of Mechanical Engineering is about to be estab- 

 lished in connection with the University College of South Wales 

 and Monmouthshire, Cardiflf ; and the authorities of the institu- 

 tion are already looking about for a suitable professor. A lec- 

 tureship in mining engineering will shortly be founded at the 

 same College, and electrical engineering is also to receive 

 attention. 



The Annual Congress of the British Archjeological Associa- 

 tion will be held at Oxford in the second week of July. 



An important International Photographic Exhibition will be 

 held in Vienna in April next year. The Photogj-aphic Neivs 

 says it is intended that only comparatively recent work, and that 

 of the best kind, shall be shown. A jury of artists and photo- 

 graphers will decide as to the admission of pictures. The 

 Exhibition will be held in the Imperial Austrian Museum of Art 

 and Industry. 



Mr. Thomas Layton, F. S.A., of Kew, who has for many 

 years been engaged in forming a museum of the prehistoric 

 antiquities of his district, has lent to the British Museum a fine 

 series of bronze swords, spears, and axes, all found in the River 

 Thames between Richmond and Battersea. The loan is shown 

 in a case by itself. 



A Scientific and Industrial Exhibition was to be opened at 

 Kazan on May 27. It will contain exhibits from Eastern Russia, 

 Siberia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, and promises to be of 

 great interest to ethnographers. 



Dr. Adolf Strubell, of Frankfort, who started on a 

 journey of zoological research in India in March 1889, is now 

 in Java making scientific collections, which he intends to present 

 to the Senckenberg Museum of Frankfort. 



The celebration of the six hundredth anniversary of the 

 foundation of the University of Montpellier ha? been most 

 successful. All the great technical schools of Paris and the 

 French provinces were represented, and deputations from many 

 foreign Universities were present. The proceedings began on 

 May 22, when there was a great reception in the University 

 hall. M. Chancel, the Rector, welcomed the guests, and Prof. 

 Tedenat sketched the history of the University and its most 

 celebrated professors. On the following day M. Carnot arrived. 

 The delegates of foreign Universities, followed by those of 

 the great French schools, marched from the University to 

 the Prefecture to be presented to the President of the 

 Republic ; and, if we may judge from a description by a 

 correspondent of the Times, the procession must have been a 

 remarkably interesting spectacle, the French and foreign 

 professors being in robes of the most varied colours. The pave- 

 ment and balconies along the route were crowded by men, 

 women, and children. After the ceremony at the Prefecture 

 the company proceeded to a park overlooking the town, com- 

 manding a view of the Cevennes on one side and the Mediter- 

 ranean on the other. Several speeches were delivered under an 

 awning. The Rector of the University thanked the President 

 for having honoured the celebration by his presence. M. Croset 

 gave a history of the University, and dwelt on the great trade 

 NO. 1074, VOL. 42] 



of Montpellier in the Middle Ages, and its relations with the 

 Arabs and Jews. Its most flourishing period, he said, was from 

 the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and Petrarch spoke of it 

 as a kind of ideal University. It made special progress in 

 studies based on the observation of nature. The delegate of 

 Bologna, the most ancient University represented, thanked M. 

 Carnot for his reception of the foreign delegates. M. Bourgeois, 

 Minister of Education, in a much-applauded speech, said the 

 Government recognized the justice of the desire expressed by 

 Montpellier and the other great schools to resume the name of 

 University and the privileges associated therewith, and the 

 question would shortly be discussed in the Chamber. We may ' 

 specially note that the later proceedings included the presentation ^ 

 of an address by French men of science to Prof. Helmholtz, 

 who represented the University of Berlin. 



The Konigliche Physikalisch-Oekonomische Gesellschaft of 

 Konigsberg, one of the oldest societies of its kind, recently 

 celebrated its centenary. It met first in Mohrungen, but in 

 1792 was amalgamated with the Economical Reading Institute 

 of Konigsberg, and thereafter bore its present name. In 

 its earlier years it dealt chiefly with rural economy and agri- 

 culture. Later on, questions of natural science came more to 

 the front, partly under the influence of Karl Ernst von Baer, the 

 most illustrious name in the Society's annals. Still later, the 

 Society had an anatomist of note among its members, Heinrich 

 Rathke, who did good work in the same field as von Baer. 



Dr. T. a. Hirst, a former President of the Association 

 for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching, has presented to 

 the Association, for its library, a valuable gift of forty volumes 

 on geometry. The Association has also acquired by purchase an 

 interesting collection of about twenty-five older text-books, in- 

 cluding the "Treatise on Algebra" by Saunderson, the blind 

 Lucasian Professor, and Stirling's " Methodus Differentialis." 



On Wednesday, May 21, a public meeting was held at the 

 Mansion House "to promote the national work undertaken by 

 the committee for testing smoke-preventing appliances." The 

 Lord Mayor presided. Lord Derby proposed a resolution 

 approving the objects of the committee. He thought that the 

 diminution of smoke, and its necessary accompaniment dirt, was 

 a matter which concerned everyone, except those who were 

 fortunate enough to live away from great towns. Indifference 

 was the real difficulty which they had to encounter, but in 

 England anything which came to be recognized as a want was 

 eventually supplied. The expenditure of fuel in creating dirt — 

 for that was what it came to — was a waste of fuel itself, and the 

 injury caused to property was not inconsiderable. He believed 

 that more than three-fourths — he would say something like nine- 

 tenths — of the smoke from collieries and factories was absolutely 

 preventable, though some trouble and outlay would be required. 

 Possibly more stringent legislation would be needed, but let 

 them first try the experiment of enforcing the laws which they 

 already had. Lord Howard of Glossop seconded and Prof. 

 Chandler Roberts- Austen supported the resolution, which was 

 carried unanimously. On the motion of Sir Henry Roscoe, 

 M.P., seconded by Earl Fitzwilliam, and supported by Alder, 

 man Bowes (Salford), a resolution was passed in favour of the 

 raising of a fund to meet the expenses of the work. 



Some interesting explorations have just been made in con- 

 nection with the famous Adelsberg Cave. The Vienna Corre- 

 spondent of the Daily News says that various citizens of 

 Adelsberg, wishing to ascertain whether the Ottoker Cave, dis- 

 covered a year ago at some distance from Adelsberg, was in any 

 way connected with the great cave, followed the course of the 

 subterranean river Poik, It was known that forty years ago a 

 party of explorers had their progress barred by a large lake, and 

 the present adventurers therefore carried with them a boat. 



